'The Walking Dead' (9PM ET Sunday, AMC) went through a lot of public controversy over the summer when executive producer Frank Darabont abruptly left and his second-in-command, Glen Mazzara, was appointed showrunner. The good news is, you wouldn't know any of that from watching the show.

In the first two episodes of the drama's second season, scares are efficiently dispensed, the action moves along briskly and there are credible attempts to make the survivors of a zombie apocalypse more than a collection of types.

The bottom line is, if you liked the what the show was dishing out in its first season -- genre storytelling made with admirable restraint and economy, except for those jump-out-of-your-seat scary/gross moments -- you're likely to enjoy what you see in season 2.

The second season of 'The Walking Dead' is full of kittens, puppies and rainbows.

Wait, scratch that -- nobody wants that version of the zombie show when it returns Oct. 16, right? I think we can all agree on that.

If it's staggering zombies and memorable scares you want, allow us to share with you this exclusive trailer from the show's second season, in which things get even worse for the hardy survivors of the zombie apocalypse.

Season 1 was all about setting up the world in which Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors were operating, but in the second season, things take an ever darker turn.